“God”
A large group of us started reading the whole Bible together last Monday, and so of course we started on Genesis 1. And as I read the familiar account of God creating the world, I was just blown away. Wow, what an incredible creator God we serve!
There were a few words and phrases that really caught my eye this time, reading Genesis 1. I want to share them with you this week. The first is simply the word “God”, which I counted 30 times in these 31 verses. I think that’s profound – as the Bible opens we see straight away that the main character, the one on whom this book is going to be centred, is God himself.
God Everywhere
Now it’s interesting that in Genesis 2:4 there’s a change – instead of Him being called “God” we now see Him being called “the LORD God”. When He is called “the LORD God” it’s because the old Hebrew writing now uses the term “Yahweh Elohim” as opposed to just “Elohim”, and this is actually quite beautiful, because in chapter 1 we just see Him creating and so He is “Elohim” or “God”, but in chapter 2 we see him in relationship with people and so now we see Him as “Yahweh” – which implies God’s covenant with His people.
So from the beginning, God created and He did so as a God of covenant relationship. He did so because His people are precious to Him as the pinnacle of creation, as we shall see later in the week.
Here’s my question for us today: is God all over our lives, like He’s all over Genesis 1?
You see, many people don’t believe in God, or maybe they do believe sort of but they don’t really care, and so they take God out of the details of their lives. Their lives show no sign of interest in God.
But then there are those who not only believe in God, but love God deeply. And for such people, God is all over their lives. They can’t imagine a day of their lives where God isn’t in it, and all over it.
God-Centered Living
Just as God’s name is peppered all over Genesis 1, I want God’s name to be peppered all over my life! I want every day to be a God-centric day. I want to see each part of my life as created by God. And I want to know Him as not just the creator God, but the God of the covenant relationship – in other words, just as we spoke of in the last two weeks of daily devos, I want to live a God-centred and people-centred life.
May your life and mine have God’s name all over them today and every day, as Genesis 1 people.
